Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup. I missed last week, so added a few more to the mix this week.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

This week spin class can kill your muscle tissue, Round Up found in Ben & Jerry’s, and carbs aren’t the enemy.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

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Despite enjoying her healthy habits, Chrissy often finds herself exhausted in the evenings and not motivated to cook dinner, even when she has ingredients already prepped.

She reached out asking for strategies to curb this habit, since it can lead to a downward spiral of ordering takeout for weeks at a time.

Sometimes an issue like this is a result of failing tactics, but for Chrissy it runs deeper. Her problem is that she doesn’t sleep well at night, and as a result is too tired to maintain her healthy habits later in the day.

There is no amount of strategy or experimentation that will fix this for her. She needs to focus on getting enough rest.

Together Chrissy and I discuss why it’s essential that she refocus her efforts on getting enough sleep, since it is foundational for the rest of her healthstyle habits. This requires addressing some of her fears and limiting beliefs around sleep, as well as some practical sleep hygiene habits.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

How I Cured My Chronic Insomnia

Obesity and Reduced Sleep: Will Sleeping Less Make Me Fat?

What I Learned From 10 Days of Silence

How To Lose Weight, Meditate Like a Monk and Hone Your Super Powers: The Magic of Lucid Dreaming

The Oura Ring Sleep Tracker

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If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

We have all been there. You walk into the break room at work or get to an event and there it is, a table full of free (and not-so-healthy) treats that are yours for the taking.

For Kristen these moments trigger her into what she calls “opportunistic eating,” mindlessly eating food that would normally not appeal to her just because it is there.

Kristen knows that this behavior is preventing her from dropping the last few pounds she would like to lose. She’s also missing out on enjoying better quality treats in the rest of her life because she has “blown her calories” on eating free junk food at work.

She feels she is undermining her personal values of both good health and enjoying delicious food because of this habit.

Together Kristen and I we come up with strategies that can help her bring awareness to her behavior and get in touch with her core values so that she can make better choices when tempted.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

Mindful Meal Challenge

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

Weighty Matters

The Diet Fix: Why Diets Fail and How to Make Yours Work by Yoni Freedhoff M.D.

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If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

This week your “organic” milk may not be, boxed mac n’cheese contains banned chemicals, and sugar in pregnancy linked to allergies.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Read the rest of this story »

Monica has a demanding job with hours that are continuously changing. She is responsible for producing original ideas at a moment’s notice, which is very intellectually demanding. Although she enjoys her work, the stress of the job causes her to snack constantly whether she is hungry or not.

It doesn’t help that her job is copywriting for fast food and snack companies and there are always plenty of treats around for her to indulge in whenever good ideas are not flowing.

Monica knows that she needs to deal with work anxiety in a healthier way. In general, she has a very healthy lifestyle. At home she eats mindfully, has a regular exercise routine and cooks healthy foods. However, when she gets to work she compares it to a “black hole” where she disappears into “non-healthstyle land.”

The overeating at work caused by stress ends up making her tired, hurting her stomach and does not align with her values. Together we come up with ideas for how Monica can resolve her anxiety using her mind instead of food.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

How to Eat More Mindfully in 19 Seconds

Listen:

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If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

This week why you should embrace “boredom,” gyrotonics is the new pilates, and olive oil is fine for high-heat cooking.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Read the rest of this story »

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

This week exercise leads to better habits, Big Food manufactures authenticity, and sleep reduces stress eating.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Read the rest of this story »

After successfully losing over seventy pounds on a meal replacement diet Cara has reached her ideal weight and is feeling great. But now she faces a new challenge: weight maintenance.

Knowing that diets rarely work long-term and that she needs a more sustainable approach to her healthstyle she is ready to tackle the hard work. In Cara’s case, that means getting over one of her biggest fears.

Cara hates cooking, but knows that learning how to prepare her own food is necessary in order for her to maintain her weight loss. After putting it off her entire life, she says she is now “trying to focus on how to make the hard work doable.”

Together we explore the story Cara has built up in her mind over the years regarding food preparation. Having struggled with this topic myself, I share how I got over my own fear of cooking and suggest ways she can approach it in a much less intimidating way, find inspiration and even get excited about it.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

Foodist Kitchen

How To Overcome Your Fear of Cooking

Listen:

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If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.

Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.

Next week’s Mindful Meal Challenge will start again on Monday. Sign up now to join us!

This week ticks spread meat allergies, gut bacteria increase lifespan, and your Italian tomatoes are probably fake.

Too busy to read them all? Try this awesome free speed reading app to read at 300+ wpm. So neat!

I also share links on Twitter @summertomato and the Summer Tomato Facebook page. I’m very active on all these sites and would love to connect with you.

Read the rest of this story »

Once or twice a week Allison and her husband decide to order take-out for dinner. They find fun reasons to celebrate, often making a night out of it by renting a movie and having a couple drinks to go along with the food delivery. It is a good time and sharing these moments together brings a lot of joy to their relationship.

Theoretically there is nothing unhealthy about this behavior. But for Allison and her husband the problem is the amount of food that is ordered and how much of it is consumed. It is not uncommon for them to order two extra large pizzas and eat one each.

Allison knows the amount of food she and her husband are consuming on these nights is not healthy and has seen a fluctuation in their weights. To compensate for the extra calories she often turns to dieting tactics and maintains a very intense exercise routine. She and her husband have tried cooking at home to compensate for their binges and have even planted a garden to inspire them to eat more vegetables, but eventually their willpower gives out and the co-bingeing ritual repeats.

Allison wants to change this unhealthy behavior, but she cannot seem to stop herself from doing it. Throughout the episode Allison and I investigate why she is over ordering take-out and discover that she has many limiting beliefs around what she considers to be healthy behavior. It becomes clear that these limiting beliefs have created blind spots for her, which are preventing her from seeing a solution.

Wish you had more time to listen to the podcast? I use an app called Overcast (no affiliation) to play back my favorite podcasts at faster speeds, dynamically shortening silences in talk shows so it doesn’t sound weird. It’s pretty rad.

Related links:

Foodist, by Darya Rose, Ph.D.

The Mindful Meal Challenge

How to develop confidence in your ability to get healthy (podcast)

The No.1 Thing That Prevents You From Changing Your Habits

Listen:

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If you’d like to be a guest on the show, please fill out the form here and tell us your story.